


Bad Chatter

by minxiebutt



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Incomplete, Unlikely to continue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 06:18:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12315450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/minxiebutt
Summary: Just because they're meant to be together, doesn't mean it will be easy.





	Bad Chatter

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this as-is a whole hecking year ago. i need a push to get working on it again so i'm just gonna post it.

It's not anything remotely like her friends who have received their names. There's no spark and _deep-eye-gazing_ and _slow-motion-nothing-else-exists_. It's a busy morning when she's rushing out of the Starbucks, trying to send an email on her phone and the autocorrect won't stop fucking changing this one fucking word goddammit. A sasquatch of a man is making his way to the exit ahead of her, slower than she would prefer, but he holds the door for her so she really can't complain too much and thanks him. Her father taught her to always look someone in the eye when thanking them, and as she looks through the long bangs obscuring his eyes, a scalding pain erupts in her hand and she drops her phone.

 

Goddammit, the screen is shattered, but _at least_ otherwise it’s still working. She scoops up her phone in a rush to get out of the entryway, not bothering to look behind her until someone calls out her name.

 

“Nanaba!”

 

She glances over her shoulder as she keeps walking further into the downtown, and immediately turns around when she sees the same man from the door holding up the back of his hand, and she can see the black scribble on a red patch of skin. She looks down at her own hand, the one in which the burning had caused her to drop her phone, and pales. _Michael_.

 

There's no happiness to be found in the moment. She feels shortchanged instead. This is not something she wants, not at her age, and especially not with someone as old and grungy looking as him. All she can do is stand there, watching the black letters settle into her raw skin longways between her wrist and thumb until a large grasp engulfs her shoulder and shakes her out of it.

 

“Mike Zacharias,” the man says proudly, beaming, offering his hand. She looks up at him dumbly, thinking that she needs to ask her father if age-gapped soul mate pairings are hereditary even though she's adopted.

 

“Nanaba Smith,” she replies weakly, knowing her hand is an uncharacteristically wet noodle in this man’s firm handshake.

 

“Wait, as in--?”

 

“Don’t know,” she cuts him off, feeling defensive that he is so casual about this. They're _strangers_.

 

“Wow, I--”

 

“It's nice to meet you Mike, but I've really got to go--”

 

“No, of course, here,” Mike stammers, pulling out his phone and quickly passing it to her with it opened to _add new contact_ . As quickly as she can, she inputs her information and hands it back, and a moment later her phone starts vibrating. She dismisses the call, knowing the phone number will be in her log and frankly, she will deal with it _later_.

 

“You don't seem happy about it,” Mike interjects when she opens her mouth to say she'll text him. Nanaba raises her brows at the sharp observation. It almost looks like he’s crestfallen under those unkempt bangs but she feels no guilt. “I'll let you take all the time you need.”

 

“Right.” She withdraws her hand and walks away.

 

;;;

 

The first text message for him goes out a measly week later. My father wants to have a dinner party to celebrate, it says. She’s crammed up in her dorm room, unable to focus on the spreadsheets, so she looks for a small distraction.

 

Date and time? Mike messages back almost immediately, which irritates her somehow.

 

A few weeks from now. She gives him the date.

 

I’ll take off work :)

 

She scowls down at her phone even though finding out he is employed makes her feel a little less reluctant. Despite his thick beard and long shaggy hair, he has a job, at least. What do you do?

 

This and that

 

Can you tell me or is it illegal?

 

Mike takes an extra minute to reply. I know this is short notice, but are you busy tonight?

 

Nanaba stares at her phone, considering ignoring him and texting back in the morning that she fell asleep. Technically, she’s done with her homework and she’s reading two lessons ahead, but does she really want to drop that to meet with him? Above all else, she does not want to be one of _those girls_ who meet their soulmates and all their goals and dreams go out the window.

 

You can say no, I’m not offended, Mike texts her when a few minutes go by.

 

I’m not busy, she sends, starting to put her notes away, and Mike sends her a location. Her dorm mate side eyes her.

 

“I’ll be back later,” she says on her way out of the door, slinging her backpack over one shoulder, stuffing her phone in the front pocket of her jeans. “Don’t wait up.”

 

Mike is waiting already when she arrives at the library’s cafe, having secured the armchair next to his own with a laptop bag. She almost doesn’t recognise him with how he’s cleaned up. Earlier in the week, he’d been like an overgrown lawn, so much hair on his face that only his impressively sized nose seemed able to poke through.

 

“You got a haircut,” she says in place of greeting.

 

“Just _one_? I distinctly remember the barber cutting all of them.” Mike lifts his head and smirks at her. His full beard has been shaved except for a thick moustache, the long hair is replaced with an undercut, and Nanaba thinks the combination looks good on him. Without all that extra foliage, he’s actually a little handsome. “I’m sorry for scaring you when we met. I get caught up in work sometimes and I forget how much I resemble a sheepdog.”

 

Nanaba moves his bag to the floor and then slings hers down to sit beside his, taking up the armchair. “No worries. I’m sure a drug dealer needs his face obscured.”

 

Mike chuckles through his nose and then extends his hand, palm up. “May I?”

 

She swallows but sets her hand in his anyway, and the warmth that floods through her from it reminds her that she needs to pick up a book about bonding. She took the mandatory health class in highschool, and the topic of name receiving was glossed over vaguely in favour of safe sex practices. Mike is studying his name in her skin closely.

 

“It’s still hard to believe,” he says and lets her have her hand back. “How old are you?”

 

“Twenty-two,” she blurts.

 

“Thirty-five,” he reciprocates. “I don’t know many people with a gap like this.”

 

Nanaba nods in agreement. “I actually have no idea how _this_ goes.”

 

“Receiving a name?”

 

“Yeah.” She leans back in the armchair and crosses her legs. “I don’t know what to expect. A few of my friends got theirs first thing into college but they promptly dropped off the face of the earth to become housewives, so I don’t have anyone to ask.”

 

“Parents?”

 

“Raised by a single dad.” He doesn’t need to know yet that her father’s soulmate died early into the marriage. Nanaba rubs at her eyes. It’s too late to have coffee but she hopes the scent in the air will give her enough energy. “I take it you know what’s coming next?”

 

“I do.” Mike sits forward with his elbows on his knees. “Once we start seeing one another more, we’ll feel the draw. That’s why your friends disappeared.”

 

“The draw?”

 

“It’s an insatiable need to be together.” Mike chuckles through his nose again. “It’s very… _primal_ , I suppose.”

 

“I’m graduating in a month, so we should hold off meeting too much until after that.” Nanaba is not about to fuck up during finals and miss graduation. No fucking way.

 

“Of course,” he tells her sincerely. “I don’t expect you to drop everything just because I’ve shown up.”

 

Nanaba rubs her eyes again to avoid looking at him when she confesses, “I’ve been in waiting, by the way.”

 

“Me, too.” Mike offers her a consoling smile. Waiting means abstaining from relationships until they receive their names, and she’s glad that he’s one, too, alongside the majority of the unnamed population. “The draw will be easier to resist, then, since we don’t know what we’re missing.”

 

Nanaba can only hum in agreement. “What else happens? Do you know what the bonds feel like?”

 

“Someone once told me it feels like having a split personality.” Mike stands and stretches his arms over his head at that. If it’s on purpose to show off the definition in his muscles, he should consider her impressed. “Can I get you something from the counter?”

 

They talk over the crumbs of her muffin until the staff ushers them out, and Mike walks her back to the campus and to her building. It’s the middle of the night now, but she feels wide awake. She lays in bed listening to her dorm mate snore while she texts Mike until she inevitably passes out, her last outgoing message a nonsensical jumble of sleepy words.

 

There’s a good morning text waiting when she gets up, having slept in now that it’s the weekend. It’s sweet, she thinks, and the thought tides her over.

 

;;;

 

He doesn’t ask her to meet again, respecting her boundary, but they text almost constantly. Somehow, in a head full of warring thoughts, she gets her thesis done and is approved for graduation. Mike is coming to the party afterwards, her happy-name-receiving/congrats-grad dinner all rolled in one, but she invites him to the ceremony too. The crowd is massive, and she can’t be absolutely sure, but she’s _pretty sure_ he was the first one she saw when she walked across the stage and looked into the audience. Instead of trying to find one another in the sea of families, they decided ahead of time to meet at her father’s place. He arrives first, judging by the foreign vehicle sitting next to Erwin’s in the driveway when her father pulls up to the house.

 

“Nice car,” Mr. Smith says with raised eyebrows. “What did you say he does?”

 

“‘This and that’.” Nanaba feels nervous now. They haven’t seen one another since the night at the library, and the only text she sent him this morning was the information for her graduation ceremony, to which he said that he would ‘ _definitely be there_.’ She follows her father inside with shaking knees, greeted first by her brother.

 

“Hey, Nana!” Erwin says, wrapping her in a bear hug that lifts her feet from the floor. “Look at my baby sister, all grown up! A diploma and a name already!”

 

“Erwin!” She squeals, kicking for the floor. “Put me down!”

 

“What’s the magic word?” He teases.

 

“Please!”

 

Erwin sets her down solidly and she steps back to get a look at him. She hasn’t seen him since Christmas, but he is the same as always, except--

 

“Erwin! You--!”

 

He holds up the back of his hand proudly to show the name, and then lifts his fingers in a flash to show her the ring. It’s her turn to hug him.

 

“When?” She asks in excitement as his arms settle back around her, hardly believing that they’re both named now, even though Erwin is in his early thirties and a late bloomer.

 

“A New Year’s party. I know it’s cliche, but--”

 

“If you say it was magical, Erwin, I swear--”

 

“Should I say that I fucked my way into the new year, then?”

 

Nanaba smacks her hands over her ears and makes a gagged noise of disgust. “You’re so gross!”

 

“Hello, brother-in-law.” He gives her a bone crushing squeeze of the shoulders and then lets her go. _“Hello,_ dream job,” he chuckles, but she goes still.

 

“What?”

 

Erwin is raising a brow at her. “Mike’s company, Nana. Don’t you know where he works?”

 

“No.”

 

Erwin sighs, straightens, and meets her head on. “I’ve been working toward a promotion at his father’s wholesale company; you know that I’m in marketing, and Mike is about to take over.”  

 

Unbidden, the memory of their first meeting stumbles through her subconscious, reminding her that she cut him off rudely when he recognised her name, and she wants to smack her forehead. Heat rises up her neck and onto her cheeks, and she can feel Erwin squeezing her close in comfort they way he’s done since she came into the family as a frightened and traumatised child.

 

“But, I mean,” Erwin backtracks, “if it’s too awkward, I can just give up and find something else. It’s not a big deal.”

 

“Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen,” Nanaba says instead. “You’re right, it’s not a big deal. Go for the job.”


End file.
